


Mild and Sweet, Their Words Repeat

by VictoriaPyrrhi



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: But he's trying, Derek Hale is Bad at Feelings, Derek is a Christmas Baby, Fluff, Found Family, Hale Family Feels, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, all the bitten betas are alive
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-11
Updated: 2019-12-11
Packaged: 2021-02-26 17:20:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21752026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VictoriaPyrrhi/pseuds/VictoriaPyrrhi
Summary: He finds the deed for the cabin in the safe deposit box, nestled in among a pile of paperwork his parents had shoved in there, along with his grandmother’s wedding ring and his grandfather’s pocket watch, and the heirloom silverware his mother insisted on keeping tucked away from little werewolves with no manners or understanding of how strong they were.Predictably, Stiles is the one who finds out about it first.Or, Derek rediscovers his family's cabin and offers to host a Very Pack New Years.
Relationships: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Comments: 6
Kudos: 129
Collections: 12 Days of Sterek





	Mild and Sweet, Their Words Repeat

**Author's Note:**

> This absolutely takes place in some kind of magical canon where none of the betas die (even though other canon events happen) and Derek gets his stuff together as an Alpha, and slowly but surely, builds a new pack and a new family.
> 
> The Hales are referenced frequently, including some OCs who fill out the family tree.

**Mild and Sweet, Their Words Repeat**

* * *

He finds the deed for the cabin in the safe deposit box, nestled in among a pile of paperwork his parents had shoved in there, along with his grandmother’s wedding ring and his grandfather’s pocket watch, and the heirloom silverware his mother insisted on keeping tucked away from little werewolves with no manners or understanding of how strong they were. The papers turn out to be deeds to a few other properties, marriage certificates for his parents, for Peter and Aunt Sarah, for Aunt Rebecca and Aunt Ginny, a stack of birth certificates that make his knees tremble with enough force that he has to sit down in the little room the bank had put him in.

He’d forgotten about the box, had forgotten about the bank giving Laura a copy of the key that had burned along with everything else. The few things they’d salvaged from the fire, that they’d collected once they’d settled in New York, had been packed into boxes and shoved into a storage unit that Derek had been telling himself he’d get to when he had time, when things finally calmed down. He only remembers because the bank is shutting down their Beacon Hills branch and they let him know via a letter to their apartment in New York that gets forwarded to the P.O. Box he’d finally set up in Beacon Hills.

It’s a silly thing to finally kick his ass into dealing with shit that he’d been putting off since Laura’s death, but for the first time in four years, he felt like maybe he could actually do this.

The cabin ends up being on about 40 acres in El Dorado National Forest, almost an hour from the nearest town and a couple hours outside of Beacon Hills. He vaguely remembers visiting once or twice when he was younger, remembers running through the scrubby pines and Laura pushing him into a rocky, frigid creek, remembers the twin alliances that would form and the snowball fights they’d start. He thinks this might have been the cabin where the adults would go for the occasional kid-free vacation, and he wishes he could remember who had been the last to come up, before everything went to shit.

Predictably, Stiles is the one who finds out about it first. Derek picks up his phone without looking at the caller ID, which he knows better than to do, but here he is anyway.

“Dad tells me you’re running away to become a mountain man. I gotta say, Derek I am not surprised, but I am disappointed. We haven’t even been gone a year and you’re pining so badly you’re running away to commune with nature.”

Derek pinches the bridge of his nose and deeply regrets telling Noah about the contents of the safe deposit box. No good deed goes unpunished remains the theme of his life. “Hi Stiles. How are you, Stiles? I’m fine, thank you.”

“Oh, sure _now_ you want to pretend like you know proper conversational etiquette. Hi Derek I’m fine thank you how’re you. Now _spill_.”

Derek doesn’t bother disguising his sigh. “I found the deed to some property our family owned out in the mountains and I asked him if he had any connections in the area, is all. I asked Chris, too.”

Derek can hear Stiles go completely still over the phone, and he wonders which part Stiles is having to process, if he’s trying to pick between the myriad of one-liners he could tease Derek with, or if he still legitimately thinks that Derek’s running.

“That’s really cool, man,” he says after a moment, and that’s not what Derek was expecting at all. He doesn’t ask about what else was in the box, and Derek doesn’t know if it’s because Noah already told, or because he’s decided to employ the tact he usually ignores. Derek’s grateful either way.

“Yeah. I wanted to see if it might be...generally safe. Safeish.”

“Safesque,” Stiles agrees.

“Something like that. Then maybe see what kind of shape its in.”

Stiles goes still again. “Are you going to fix it up?” he asks, and Derek doesn’t have to read between the lines for that.

“Probably so. Thought I could maybe rent it out or something. Let the pack use it for vacations if they want. Like my parents did.”

“Cool, that’s. That’s really cool. Let me know how it goes, yeah?”

“Sure.” They’re quiet for a moment and Derek should just hang up, but instead he asks, “How were your midterms?” Which launches Stiles into rant-mode. Derek listens and makes the appropriate noises as he looks through DIY websites, smiling.

He first makes the drive just after Thanksgiving, waits until his pack is scattered back at their colleges to steel himself against whatever it is he’s going to find. He had Skyped Cora not long after he talked to Stiles, wanted to see if she wanted to make the trip up from South America to open the cabin back up. She spent a long moment worryingly quiet before giving him a small, kind of pained smile.

“If you’re alright on your own, I think you should go ahead,” she finally said. “It’s a long trip for something that might be a total loss, and I’m going to be coming up for Christmas and New Year’s anyway. Maybe we can go together then?”

Derek hadn’t fully understood, but he’d just nodded. Becoming family with Cora again has been, he thinks sometimes, the most challenging part of the last few years. Her experience of the fire, of its aftermath, were completely alien to what he and Laura went through, and it’s been a process to remember that, to learn when to push and when to let things be. This wasn’t the hill to die on, especially with the promise of a Christmas visit on the horizon.

He’s not sure what he’s expecting to find - the cabin might not even still be standing, the roof could be rotted out, the place flooded; lightning could have struck or one of the wildfires could have left another Hale home in ashes. He turns off the main road onto what used to be a gravel drive but seems to mostly just be ruts of dirt and weeds now and makes the executive decision to leave his car and go the rest of the way on foot. The cabin is nearly a mile back from the main road, tucked away on a wooded hill, and the feeling of relief Derek feels as he turns a corner in the path to see it still standing and looking mostly intact is palpable.

The door’s locked, and while the deed had been in the lock box, the keys were long since gone. Derek looks around, but the back door’s locked too, and all of the windows are miraculously unbroken, so he pops a claw and sets to work on picking the deadbolt because the alternative is punching through the door and he’s not quite willing to resort to that yet.

It takes some time, but eventually he manages it, and in a fit of satisfaction, Derek flips off the deadbolt, claw out, and takes a picture, knowing he’s going to send it to Stiles as soon as he has reception again.

He opens the door before he can talk himself out of it, and he’s not sure whether or not to be disappointed or relieved when he’s hit with the smell of dust and stale air and not a wave of his family’s scent. It’s there, faint underneath the scent of disuse and time, but it’s not overpowering. The floors creak under his feet, but it’s a normal sound, no rot to be found in the wood. He makes his way around the house methodically, sniffing for mold, for termites or mice, but there’s nothing that he can tell - apart from a decade’s worth of cleaning - that’s seriously wrong. He starts making a list on his phone of things that he needs to get checked out: septic tank, propane, check the well, the roof, the fireplace. Buy sheets, towels, cleaning supplies. The couch is musty but not rotting, and underneath the grime, he can still catch the faint whiff of his mother, of the twins and his cousin Jon who used to curl up in the corner, exhausted and half-wolfed out. He remembers Cora and Natasha fighting over the beanbag chair that’s seen better days and his father and Peter bringing in firewood because Aunt Rebecca and his mother were out hunting for dinner.

For the first time in a long, long while, Derek remembers and lets it soothe him instead of flay him and he thinks that this could be a place for family again.

* * *

“It’s remarkably intact,” he tells Stiles over the phone. Stiles had called, ostensibly for updates, but Derek knows he’s procrastinating on writing at least two final papers.

“Huh. Wouldn’t have thought it’d be, given how many years -” he cuts himself off before he finishes, and it’s something Derek notices he’s been doing a lot more recently, like this is how he’s trying to be mindful of his brain-to-mouth filter.

Derek doesn’t know how to tell him that he doesn’t really mind Stiles’s chatter, that he’s finally gotten to the point where he doesn’t need people to walk on eggshells around the subject of his family and the fire.

“Given it’s been at least a decade since anyone’s been there?” he finishes. “Yeah, I was really surprised. I got the septic pumped and the propane filled, but otherwise,” Derek clears his throat, suddenly nervous because he’s never the one who initiates these things with the pack. “I thought of maybe doing a New Year’s thing?”

“Really?”

“I...yeah, if people want? Or don’t have plans. No big deal.”

It is definitely a big deal and they are both well aware of it, but instead of calling him on it, Stiles just says, “Yeah man, I think that’d be awesome. You should like...send out an email to everyone or something.”

Derek groans. “You can’t do it?”

Stiles straight up laughs at him. “Oh, hell no. I’ve gotta see this. I’ll be the first to RSVP, though.”

He finds one of those evite sites just to fuck with Stiles. With something akin to glee, he picks the most obnoxious background he can think of and changes the font to Comic Sans. He sends everyone else a mass text.

Derek’s phone vibrates around 3:00 a.m. with a middle finger emoji and the word _Touche_.

* * *

Derek goes up to the cabin a week ahead of everyone else. He tells the pack that it’s because the property hasn’t been used in a decade, and that’s true. He still has a lot of settling in to do - furniture he ordered is waiting in town to be picked up, and he has the back of his rented truck full of food and linens and biodegradable toilet paper and anything else he can think of that the place needs. Stiles had laughed at him and claimed that he was denning, to which Derek had reminded him _again_ that he was not actually a wolf, _Stiles_.

Still, there was a little bit of truth to it, not that he’d ever admit it. The rest of it is just that he likes the idea of spending his birthday, in a place where his family was, where they had made a mountain of happy memories and that didn’t smell of ash and death and betrayal.

He gets in on Christmas Eve, unloads his packages and figures that he can go back into town after Christmas for the furniture and anything he missed before the rest of the pack gets in on the 28th. He’s got some time, he thinks and stands on the porch for a good long while, just taking in the scenery and the _air_ and _fuck it_ , he shifts right there on the porch, clothing falling away as he bounds down the steps and starts to make the rounds of this new-old territory. And well, if he brings down a rabbit for dinner, there’s no one here to judge him for it just yet.

Derek finishes hauling in the last of the firewood he’d brought with him after dinner, tells himself that he’ll start the cleaning in the morning, and nestles down on the couch, wrapped in a comforter and a sense of family, and reads until he can’t keep his eyes open anymore.

He's doing a deep clean of the kitchen, head stuck underneath the sink, when his ears pick up the sound of a vehicle. He stills, poised for _something_ , because there isn't supposed to be anyone else up here for almost a week, and the cabin isn't the kind of place where someone drops by unexpectedly.

A moment later, he scrambles upward, slamming his head into the countertop because he knows that engine and it's...well, he stopped using the word "impossible" when it came to Stiles years ago, but he can't for the life of him figure out why Stiles would be here, now.

He has a moment of blind panic where he envisions another catastrophe, his pack struggling and fighting while they’ve sent Stiles to come and retrieve him, but the thought is banished almost as soon as he has it. He can sense Stiles now, and his heartbeat is as steady as it ever is, his breathing normal except where he's a little out of breath from singing along to...god, is that Weezer? Derek rolls his eyes and waits on the porch for the Jeep to make its way around the last bend in the dirt path.

Stiles, for his part, looks completely unsurprised to see Derek waiting for him. He slides out of the Jeep, shit-eating grin on his face.

"Surprise Christmas Stiles!" he yells.

"You do know that you guys were supposed to come up later, right?" Derek says, but he can't hide his pleased expression.

Stiles rolls his eyes, still smiling. "Aw, come in, you know you're glad to see me."

"I admit nothing of the sort."

"That's okay, your grumpy face reveals all. Come on, big guy, bring it in."

Stiles is hugging him before he fully realizes what's happening, which is probably some kind of metaphor for their whole relationship, but Derek can't be bothered to figure it out right now because Stiles is warm against him, bundled up as he is in too many layers, his arms right around Derek's waist. Derek hugs him back and doesn't even try to hide the way he scents Stiles, inhaling the smell of pack and _Stiles_.

"I missed you," Stiles murmurs, almost too low for even Derek to hear, and he thinks about saying something like, _You just saw me three days ago_ , but there's something in Stiles's voice that keeps him quiet. Instead, he just hugs back a little tighter.

"Seriously though," Derek says as they finally release each other. "You didn't have to come early."

Stiles shrugs like it's no big deal, like he isn't missing time with his father in favor of manual labor. "I just figured you'd maybe like an extra set of hands around the place before everyone else gets here. Also I thought I'd see about getting some wards set up so you don't have to worry about wear and tear on the cabin, but _wow_ ," he gives a low whistle. “Maybe not.”

He grabs his backpack and an overstuffed duffle bag out of the back, and Derek’s moving to take the duffle before he can think about it. Stiles hands it over almost absently, staring at the cabin in a focused way that makes Derek want to fidget.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that this place already has some intense wards all over it, which is probably why you hardly had to touch it - I’m not sure if I can even do much to improve them.”

“Maybe you can figure out a way to ward against dust,” Derek mumbles, heading inside. Stiles laughs a little and rummages around the back of the Jeep for another moment, coming up with a reusable grocery bag and a small cooler, then follows after him.

“I don’t think God himself can find a way around dust, but I’ll take that to mean you want to me to have a look at the wards anyway.”

“Considering I didn’t even know they were there, yeah.”

Stiles closes the door behind him and stops dead. The cabin isn’t huge, especially not in comparison to the house Derek grew up in, but it’s spacious enough, he supposes. The ceiling in the common area is high, open beams and rich wood, and a spiral staircase leading up to the loft where the kids had stayed the few times the whole Hale clan had come out here.

“This is...really great, man,” Stiles finally says. “I’d kick my shoes off, but before I help in here, I’m gonna do a circuit around the outside.”

“Yeah, sure,” Derek says. He’s watched Stiles do wards before, around Derek’s apartment building, around the Preserve, around the homes of the pack. It’s a familiar process and one he knows Stiles doesn’t need his help for. “I can put your stuff in a room? Maybe get started on lunch.”

“That’d be awesome, dude, thanks.” Stiles grins at him again, can’t seem to stop, and Derek doesn’t know what, exactly, to make of that, other than he’s glad that Stiles seems to like the cabin. He leaves the grocery bag, but takes his backpack with him as he heads back outside, and Derek debates for a long moment about what room to put Stiles in.

Three bedrooms and the loft. Derek tells himself that sleeping on the couch wasn’t avoiding a decision, but he was absolutely lying to himself. It would make logical sense to give up the master bedroom to one of the couples coming instead of taking it for himself, but the idea of anyone _not_ his parents staying there makes his hackles rise. It’s a ridiculous instinct. He knows better than anyone just how dead they are, how much they wouldn’t care even if they were alive, but he just can’t do it. They’ve got to find room for twelve people, himself included, and it would make the most sense to put Scott, Issac, Allison, and all of their _whatever_ in the master and put all the singles up in the loft, but well. He’s not even sure who’s single anymore or not. There was that thing between Stiles and Malia for a while, and if he’s being honest, he loves being involved in the lives of his pack, but he gave up keeping current on dating and crushes when they were all still in high school and he’s much less stressed as a result. Similarly, he decides that the rooming situations can just...work themselves out without his input.

He leaves Stiles’s bag by the couch and goes to start lunch instead. Magic always leaves Stiles ravenous on top of his normal bird-metabolism, so he figures he’s better off starting a mess of grilled cheese sandwiches now so he doesn’t have to listen to Stiles’s pathetic hunger whines when he finishes up. He’s got a stack several sandwiches high and a pan of tomato bisque heating up on the stove by the time Stiles comes back in, molting shoes and outer layers.

“Oh damn that smells good,” he says, heading straight for the kitchen and crowding into Derek’s space. “Where’s yours?”

“Har har. Go ahead and grab a bowl if you want; soup should be done.” Derek gestures at one of the cabinets. He’s got one eye on Stiles as he reaches up to grab a couple of bowls and plates and one eye on the sandwich he’s trying to keep from burning, and he’s startled to note that Stiles doesn’t have to stretch at all to reach the top shelf. Even Derek has to go up on his toes a little, and that’s...well. It’s certainly something.

Stiles knocks elbows with Derek as he ladles out his soup and it’s part comforting camaraderie, part pure _Stiles_ being a little shit; Derek rolls his eyes and plays along, hip checking him gently when he tries to go for a second sandwich before he’s evening finished his first. Stiles laughs and settles against the countertop as Derek finishes up the last grilled cheese and catches him up.

“The wards, oh man.” Stiles whistles. “Honestly, a work of art. I would have thought maybe Deaton - I _know_ he still hasn’t taught me all the shit he knows - but these feel different somehow? Stronger? Idk how to articulate it without,” he waves his hand, still holding half a grilled cheese. “Still, I’m glad you found this place when you did. Without doing a renewal, they probably would have started fading pretty soon.”

Derek knows the questions that Stiles isn’t asking, and he’s a little grateful, but mostly he just doesn’t know the answers. “I wish I could tell you who did them,” he finally says, “I think it might have been Aunt Ginny?” Stiles goes still next to him like he does every time Derek talks about his family. “She and Peter used to argue about magic every so often, but I wasn’t sure how much was theory versus practice.” Derek’s smile is a little bitter, but genuine. “I definitely wasn’t paying a lot of attention as a kid.” He wonders if Aunt Ginny had set up the wards at the Hale House, or if it had been Deaton, if it would have made a difference one way or another when he had let Kate in.

“Was she a Hale, too?” Stiles asks, drawing Derek out of his thoughts before they can start to spiral.

“By marriage. She married Mom’s younger sister, Rebecca. That was the only wedding I’ve ever attended.”

“Oh my god...were you the flower boy? The ring bearer? Did they put you in a little sailor suit to walk down the aisle?”

“I don’t think you know what actually happens at weddings,” Derek counters, fighting back a blush. It hadn’t been a sailor suit, but he remembers pictures of him and Laura in color coordinating outfits and how Rebecca and Ginny used to love teasing him about how seriously he took his duties as ring bearer.

“Don’t ruin the mental image for me, dude. It’s adorable. You were totally teeny tiny, weren’t you?”

“Maybe four or five,” Derek finally admits and he’s not sure that warrants the extra obnoxious coo he gets from Stiles, but for all that it’s over the top, it’s still completely sincere.

They pass the rest of the day cleaning, sometimes in silence, sometimes interspersed with music from Stiles’s phone and occasional vocal accompaniment. Stiles pulls heavy duty gloves out of his shopping bag and tells Derek to point him where he’s needed most. Derek sends him into the bathrooms and laughs when he bitches the entire time. It’s...surprisingly pleasant in spite of the dirt and grime, and Derek allows himself to remember just how well he and Stiles work together. He wonders if maybe he should have pushed Cora to come up early and help, but secretly, guiltily, he’s glad that it’s Stiles here instead. He’s had more pleasant memories of his family here than he’s had in the last decade, but he thinks that if it were just himself and Cora, they’d slowly collapse under the weight of their fragile relationship and the ghosts of their past.

For dinner, Stiles bullies Derek out of the kitchen and tells him to relax, which leaves Derek deeply suspicious, but he complies and settles back into his spot on the couch with his book. Between the warmth of the fire and finally sitting still, he maybe dozes a little bit. When he wakes up, it’s to Stiles, smiling softly, his hand warm and sturdy on Derek’s shoulder.

Derek blinks at him for a long moment, his emotions a swirling mess as his brain tries to come back online.

“Dinner’s up, napwolf,” Stiles says, retreating to the other side of the couch. Something smells amazing, and also like the infamous Stilinski meatball recipe, and Derek feels his mouth water, Pavlovian in its response. Meatballs are for special occasions only, Stiles is fond of reminding them all, and Derek’s never figured out whether it’s because they’re a pain to make, or because they’re Stiles’s best recipe and he doesn’t want them to lose their place as favorite pack meal.

“‘m not,” Derek says, swinging his legs onto the floor.

“You’re not what, napping? Are you sure because we just cleaned that couch and now there’s a drool stain on it, sleepyface."

Derek refuses to dignify that with a response and instead focuses on the plate on the coffee table, heaped high with pasta and meatballs. Stiles grins at him from the other side of the couch.

“Go on, dig in. You get to be my guinea pig for this new sauce I’m trying.”

There’s something in his voice that says it’s not a lie, but maybe it’s not the whole truth either, but Derek doesn’t worry too much about it because _Stilinski meatballs_. It’s stupidly delicious, and Derek wants to finish his plate, go into the kitchen, and lick the pot clean and he has absolutely no idea how to relay that in a way that isn’t just dog whining, and despite what some members of his pack say, he still has _some_ dignity left.

“Well?” Stiles asks, smiling like he already knows the answer.

“It’s awful, I hate it,” Derek says and then immediately shoves another forkful into his mouth.

“If it’s that bad, I can get you something else.” Stiles reaches for Derek’s plate and Derek hunches over it, twisting his torso to keep it out of his grasp. “Uh-huh. I see how it is. It’s okay, you don’t have to pretend to like it, Der-Bear,” he laughs.

“No, no. It’s fine, I don’t mind taking one for the team,” Derek says. If he leans too much further, not even werewolf reflexes will save him from falling off the couch.

“Really, it’s terrible, I get it -” Stiles’s long fingers slip around Derek’s side, his own plate abandoned on the coffee table, and Derek’s not ticklish exactly, but there’s something about _Stiles_ that has him squirming.

“ _Noooo_ ,” Derek protests, and in a last-ditch attempt to not fall or spill his dinner, he shoves most of what’s left on his plate into his mouth like an actual animal, cheeks bulging with pasta.

It’s not his proudest moment.

Stiles slumps over Derek’s leg, laughing too hard to keep himself upright, unable to look Derek in the eye without bursting into a fresh round of snickering. It takes a while for the both of them to calm down, and having crammed a truly inadvisable amount of his dinner into his mouth, Derek mostly just sits next to Stiles as he picks his plate back up and finishes his own meal, occasionally chuckling under his breath like Derek can’t hear him.

It’s...it’s really _nice_. It’s maybe the best Christmas he’s had in a long while. It’s definitely the best birthday. Even when he gets invited to someone’s house for Christmas, he always feels a little like an interloper. He knows his pack cares, but it’s just not quite the same. But Stiles...Stiles came out to him.

“Why aren’t you with your dad?” Derek asks. It’s completely abrupt, but Stiles doesn’t look confused by the non sequitur. He wonders if it’s because Stiles lives in non sequiturs or because he just knows Derek that well. It maybe says something else that Stiles doesn’t dance around the question when he answers.

“We spent Christmas Eve together,” Stiles says, leaning back and rubbing absently at his stomach. “He likes doing Christmas Day so some of the deputies can take time for their families, so we kind of made Christmas Eve our tradition after Mom passed. I figured Christmas Day could maybe be yours.”

Derek nods, because “yours” feels a lot like “ours” and what else is he supposed to say to that. It stirs something that’s been slowly growing in his chest for years now, something that Derek’s been ignoring because it was never the right time. Stiles was too young, they were all too much in danger, there was college and magic and wendingos and a hundred other excuses for Derek to - not pine, but just, hold the fragile core of himself a little closer.

Stiles is smiling at him, small and private, like maybe he’s waiting for Derek to...to what? To reject him? To protest? To grab him by the shirt and kiss him senseless? Derek stands, grabbing his plate, then reaches over and grabs Stiles’s, too. Stiles watches him, lip pinned between his teeth. Whatever happens next, Derek is pretty sure that Stiles is making sure it’s Derek’s move, Derek’s choice.

He strategically retreats to the kitchen to wash the dishes. He’s not real proud of that one, either.

Stiles trails in after him a few minutes later, just enough time for Derek to collect himself without giving him enough time to start feeling weird and guilty about leaving without a word. And god, Stiles knows him; knows him in a way that nobody has since Laura. He’s wormed himself so deeply into Derek’s chest, and the strangest part of the whole thing is how seamless it was. Derek didn’t even know it had happened. Did Stiles? Has Derek done that to Stiles as well? When he looks at Derek, is he seeing someone who brings him happiness, peace, support, who helps fill in the gap in his heart labeled “family?”

“Hey man, c’mon, I was going to do the dishes,” he chides, leaning up against the counter.

“You cooked, I clean. That’s how it works, Stiles, you know that,” Derek says, letting the hot water scald his hands a little.

“Well fine. You got cocoa mix?”

“No, but I’ve got cocoa powder,” Derek says without thinking about it.

“Oh, old school, huh? Milk in the saucepan and everything?”

“I thought I’d give Dad’s recipe a try for New Years,” he says, “I guess you’re going to have to be my guinea pig now.” And Stiles makes a soft noise and leans into him, his long body a warm line against Derek’s side and completely unconducive to washing up the meatball pan. He leaves it soaking in the sink, instead and turns so that they’re pressed chest to chest.

Stiles thunks his head onto Derek’s shoulder and Derek tilts his head, just a little, just enough so that Stiles’s mouth is pressed against his throat, and this time, the noise Stiles makes is...jesus. He nuzzles in just a little and Derek’s entire body sparks with it.

“Happy birthday,” he finally says, lips brushing against Derek’s hypersensitive skin. Derek shivers. “I had a _plan_ , you know.”

“Of course you did,” Derek says and turns his head just enough so that he’s finally kissing Stiles. He’d be lying if he said he had never thought about it before. He _had_ , in detail, and it was a flaw he tried not to dwell on.

It’s nothing compared to the reality, to the way Stiles’s long fingers slide into Derek’s hair, to the way his mouth demands and yields in turn, the slick feeling of his tongue against Derek’s, the _noises_ he makes in the back of his throat. Derek can feel every one of them, can see a future spiraling out in front of him full of these kisses, soft and familiar, of the way they can turn frantic and dirty just as easily.

“I have a present for you,” Stiles says when they finally break apart.

“So I see,” Derek replies before he can think better of it. Stiles laughs into Derek’s shoulder.

“Did you just - a _boner joke_?! Oh god, no one is ever going to believe me.”

Derek smirks and grips Stiles’s hips a little tighter, enjoying the way his heart stutters in his chest. “Nope.”

“I really did get you something.”

“You didn’t have to,” Derek says. “Even if we didn’t...even if _this_ didn’t happen, you being here is the best present I could have asked for today.”

“Sappywolf,” Stiles says, impossibly fond. He digs around in his pocket for a second and pulls out a USB stick. “It’s...I was going to write them all out, but you’ve seen my handwriting, so I figured it would be better to put it all on something digital instead.” Derek takes it carefully, stares at it. “I got everyone to contribute at least one family recipe. Jackson said he didn’t have any, but I told him he was a liar, so if you’re wondering why there’s a recipe for egg in a basket in there, that’s his fault.”

Derek...Derek can’t think of a single fucking thing to say that isn’t _I love you_ and he’s not sure they’re there yet, even if it’s true in so many ways.

“I don’t - I didn’t want to overstep. I know nothing’s ever going to replace your family or their traditions, but I thought maybe we could...the pack could start something new, too.”

“It’s fucking perfect,” Derek finally manages, and he’s not ashamed that his voice cracks a little, or that his eyes are damp. “Thank you.”

He kisses Stiles again, and thinks that this is also a new tradition they can build together - birthdays at the cabin, kissing and laughing and building their pack into a family. Maybe even one day, something more. Derek can see the snow starting to fall harder out of the kitchen window before he closes his eyes and concentrates on Stiles’s mouth against his, wet and perfect.

Stiles kisses him back and that’s perfect, too.

* * *

They’re curled up together on the couch, watching the snow and the fire in the fireplace when Stiles says, “I also brought a christmas cactus cause mistletoe is poisonous to dogs.”

“We’re not _dogs_ , Stiles.”

“Still poisonous, though.”

“Shut up, Stiles.” Derek rolls his eyes and Stiles burrows in closer, grinning into the comforter.

“That’s not a no.”

**Author's Note:**

> I definitely wanted to make this real Cabin!Fic, but ran out of time. Please assume they get snowed in for a few days after this and it's all very romantic and steamy in equal measures. All the betas make fun of them when they finally arrive.
> 
> ***  
> Hale family:  
> Talia and David: Laura, Derek, Cora, Natasha and Ian (twins)  
> Peter (Talia's brother) and Sarah (his wife): Aurelia and Ophelia (twins)  
> Rebecca (Talia's younger sister) and Ginny (her wife): Jon (their son)


End file.
